A ritual disappointment and a lesson in patience in Cairo

The trial of Australian journalist Peter Greste will stretch on for at least another week, after the adjournment of his case this week. For journalists covering the story, the trek into the courtroom in Cairo's Tora Prison has become a fortnightly ritual, which always ends in disappointment.

Transcript

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ELIZABETH JACKSON: The trial of Australian journalist Peter Greste will stretch on for at least another week, after the adjournment of his case this week.

For journalists covering the story, the trek into the courtroom in Cairo's Tora prison has become a fortnightly ritual, which always ends in disappointment.

Our Middle East correspondent Hayden Cooper reports.

HAYDEN COOPER: Tora Prison is, as you might expect, a foreboding place. Long high walls, police snipers stationed in towers, and military tanks standing at the ready. This is what greets us every time we arrive for another episode in this unjust affair.

By now, the Egyptian police are accustomed to the arrival of scores of journalists to cover this case. We're tolerated and ushered inside only when they've been given the all-clear from higher up the chain.

Then it's a 500 metre walk down a dusty road to the first security check. Here, paperwork is confirmed, bags are sifted through, before finally we're permitted to wait directly outside the giant courtroom in a small and filthy foyer.

(Crowd murmuring)

This bustling place makes me dread to think what it must be like in the prison itself, because if the waiting room for the court is as disgusting as this, the conditions for Peter Greste inside must be something else entirely.

Usually crammed full of lawyers, police and now press, this room is often just the starting point of a gruelling wait.

(Sound of prayers)

As the more devout lawyers line up on a mat in the corner and pray, the rest of us stand and hope that soon we'll be allowed in.

The tiled floor and walls are marked with years of grime. The one bathroom is a cesspit of disease. Journalists pass the time as best they can with family members like Adel Fahmy, the brother of Mohamed.

Before this week's hearing he helped explain the delay: last-minute lawyer arguments over evidence.

ADEL FAHMY: The lawyers are not being able to prepare for their defence because they're not getting the CDs from the prosecution. The prosecution is asking for a ridiculous amount of 1.2 million Egyptian pounds to release the evidence, the so-called evidence. So that's the first objection by the lawyers, and they're refusing to go to defence before this is met. Plus their other demand is that the committee of specialists has to show up, has to attend to be questioned, or else they cannot properly defend.

HAYDEN COOPER: So the lawyers are worried that now it seems all of a sudden that the judge wants to speed proceedings up...

ADEL FAHMY: Exactly, exactly.

HAYDEN COOPER: ...but it comes at the crucial stage when they have to offer their defence, so they could lose.

ADEL FAHMY: Exactly. So if you rush things, you might get an unfavourable verdict, a conviction, and it would be too late to turn anything around. So that's what we're worried about.

So the judge wants to expedite things and the defendants as well obviously, because they do not see the full picture from outside as well. So there is also this conflict between the lawyers and the defendants, you know?

HAYDEN COOPER: So the defence lawyers are now saying to the guys in prison -

ADEL FAHMY: Cool down, just relax, just hold on for a little longer until we get these two requests met.

HAYDEN COOPER: And do you think that'll happen today?

ADEL FAHMY: I'm very anxious to see what's going to happen today. I'm very anxious to see what's going to happen today because there will be a conflict between the lawyer and the judge, and the lawyers and the defendants.

HAYDEN COOPER: When the stern-faced policeman finally opens the gates the collective relief results in a rush for the final metal detector and into the courtroom.

Here, the case has usually already begun.

In prison whites, the Australian and his colleagues are standing in the cage. They shout and wave at journalists and their families and on the case goes.

After attending most of these hearings I've learnt to always be pessimistic. Never has there been any sign that the Egyptians want a quick verdict here. Remember the interim president Adly Mansour's promise of such a verdict to the Greste family? Well that was two months ago - his word is looking pretty flimsy now.

On the contrary, the trial has become bogged down in incompetence and delays. Even the simple task of providing the evidence to the defence team has failed to happen. So in effect, the last two hearings in the trial have been pointless.

The defence case is still yet to begin. There's no guarantee that the next session next Thursday won't end the same way.

As frustrating and soul-destroying as it must be for the family of the three journalists, somehow they manage to push on.

And even after a complete let down like this week, when nothing was achieved but another week wrongfully imprisoned, Adel Fahmy for one manages to remain upbeat.